


I Do Not Sleep

by presentpathos



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 00:38:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/presentpathos/pseuds/presentpathos





	I Do Not Sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wallwalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/gifts).



The last time she had spoken to Shepard it had been in anger. 

"I'm asking Admiral Hackett to transfer you off the Normandy."

"What?"

They were the only two left in the officer's mess, but Ashley couldn't help looking around to see who else was there.

"I'm asking Hackett to transfer you." Shepard reached out for her hand but Ashley snatched it away. "Ash, please."

"You're booting me off your ship? Asking a fleet officer to transfer me?" Her knuckles went white from the strain of not tossing a plate. "Do you know how that's going to look on my record? The great Commander Shepard tossing me off her ship?" 

Sheperd's eyes widened, her jaw sagged a little bit. Surely, Ash thought, she knew how badly this would look in her file. No one would touch her after this. Promoted through the ranks, a Williams, bumped six months later? They'd think she wasn't officer material, probably already did. "You'll kill my career."

Ash knew as soon as she said it she had made a mistake. Sheperd's eyes became slits in her face, her jaw tightened so hard she could see the muscles twitch. "Your career? How do you think your career will go when the defense board finds out we've been fraternizing for months Ash? How do you think your promotion will look when the officer who pushed your promotion to the officer corps, when they discover we've been sharing a bed for weeks Ash?" Shepard's words came fast and furious, the knife edge or her right hand slapping into her palm with each point. "How do you think Virmire will look when they find out about us?"

Ash scrubbed her hand over her face and looked at Shepard. Her eyes pleaded for understanding but the thought of leaving her, of their...whatever it was existing at the whim of shore leave rotations and QEC messages. It was too much for her. Ash couldn't return Shepard's gaze as she stood up and walked out of the mess, turning her back on her commander. Her captain. 

Hours passed and Ashley stayed in her bunk, waiting. She laid down on her bunk, got up. Started to write a letter to Sarah but stopped when tears started leaking out the corners of her eyes. Set aside the letter and was about to start doing chin ups when Joker's voice burst over the comms. 

"Brace for evasive maneuvers!"

The Normandy lurched starboard so hard and fast the inertial dampeners totally failed and Ashley was thrown to the ground. She heard explosions through the hatch as she scrambled to regain her footing and started strapping on her hardsuit. She ran out of her bunk before everything was sealed up, sprinting to get to Shephard. 

The noise was insane, klaxons howling, air screaming out through the ruptured hull, she couldn't hear anything other than the generalized noise of panic and death until Shepard's voice burst over the comms.   
"This is the Commander. All hands, abandon ship. I repeat, all hands abandon ship."

Ashley burst around the corner and there she was, helmet on, visor closed, wrestling with a fire extinguisher for some damned reason.

"Shepard!" Ashley's knees buckled and almost gave out as she cried out. 

"Distress beacon is ready for launch." Shephard was all business, forcing Ashley to pause and consider what to say next. 

"Will the alliance get here in time?" 

"The Alliance won't abandon us. We just need to hold on. Get everyone into the escape pods."

"Joker's still in the cockpit, he won't abandon ship." She paused, bracing for an argument. "I'm not leaving either."

"I need you to get the crew onto the evac shuttles. I'll take care of Joker." It was a tone that broked no dissent, her captain ordering her, not her lover asking her. 

"Commander..."

"Ashley," Shepard looked back over her shoulder. "Go."

They looked at each other, trying to stare through the obstrction of the hardsuits. It was a stupid fight, she wanted to say, of course they couldn't be in the same chain of command. She was wrong. She loved her. 

"Aye aye." She said instead, turning and running, pushing crewmen into evac pods, yanking the wounded but still mobile Adams off the deck as she went. 

"Where's the Commander?" he shouted in her ear.

"She went back for Joker. She'll be right behind us." Ashely tossed Adams into the last pod on the deck, followed him and and frantically ran through the launch sequence. The quadurple pop of the explosive bolts warned her to brace, but she wasn't fast enough, the force of the pod's exit knocked her to the floor. The pod had one tiny window, right above her head and she stared out, watching the Normandy hit atmo and start to burn up. 

Ashley woke up slowly, her head cotton-filled and slow to react. 

"Hey there lieutentant, long time no see?"

Ashley tried to lift her head, failed, and rolled it slowly to one-side. "Joker? Izzat you?"

She felt his hand reach for hers. Where was Shepard? she wondered. If Ash felt this terrible Shepard must be in a world of hurt too. Maybe not, Vanguards being Vanguards and all. 

"Yeah Ash, it's me." He took her hand, gingerly on account, she hoped, of his bones, and not any damage she had received. "Turns out you shouldn't stand in a launching escape pod Ash."

"Shepard?" Something ugly was forming in the pit of her stomach, dark and forboding." "She went back for you right?"

Joker's eyes slid away from hers and she cried out in her head, begged him to not say anything. 

"Ash, Shepard, she, uh..."

Stop, she pleaded. Stop please, don't say anything more.

"She didn't make it Ash." Joker dropped her hand as she jerked up from her bed, hands rushing back to wrap around her waist. "There was a beam, it blew the, uh, she tossed me into an evac pod and it just fired right between us."

That's pretty much all she remembers. They say it could be a lot of things, residual brain damage, emotional trauma, whatever, she just doesn't want to remember those horrible days. She hasn't talked to Joker since, lost touch with Tali, Garrus and Liara. The Navy put her on leave for a month, she spent it planetside at her mom's, mostly staying in her childhood bed and not talking to anyone. Drinking alone for extended periods of time. When she went back to the Navy it was pretty clear only the good offices of Captain, Councillor Anderson and Admiral Hackett were keeping her there. She got shit assignments, garbage details with a lot of paperwork and no danger. When Anderson had asked her to ship out to the Terminus systems to liaise with some of the human colonies she had leapt at the chance. Now here she was, Horizon, a backwater shit hole if ever she's seen one. 

Since she arrived here though, on Horizon, and even travelling through the Terminus Systems, she's been hear things. About a Cerberus ship, a woman named Shepard, fighting breaking out wherever she goes. Ashley can't believe it, won't believe it. It's been _two years_ she has to let her go. Except, except she woke up this morning and felt the ghost of warm hands on her belly, a whisper in her ear. It's silly, she knows it is, but she hopes, even after all this time.


End file.
